Aesthetics in Resistance Poetry: Re-reading Dennis Brutus and Habib Jalib

Abstract

This research will focus on studying resistance towards the state in the poetry of Dennis Brutus and Habib Jalib through textual analysis, in the context of South African and South Asian respectively. By employing Nguigi wa Thiong’o’s theory of resistance as outlined in his work Penpoints, Gunpoints, and Dreams: Towards a Critical Theory of the Arts and the State in Africa, the research contends to comparatively analyse the selected poetic pieces of these two poets. It will examine how poets in developing countries resist against the state through their power of writing, and hence struggle for freedom. The research will also focus on the aesthetics of poetry and utilise an aestheticised perspective to understand the poetic resistance as a constructive resistance. Such a resistance creates awareness among the masses oppressed by the state and is a vehicle of social and political criticism. While Dennis Brutus counters White supremacy, Habib Jalib on the other hand confronts the political hegemony of dictators from within his own people, in his time. The research intends to comparatively analyse, through the relationship of “the art of the state” and “the state of art,” the power of the resistance poets towards the state’s oppression and power. 1 It intends to keep in view the different political scenarios—that is, the colonial and post colonial regimes—while analysing the similar struggle of the poets for freedom against the tyranny of the state. Dennis Brutus and Habib Jalib were writing in different parts of the world, South Africa and Pakistan